” Data from the National Retail Federation shows that many consumers no longer find it necessary or appealing to shop in physical stores. The trade group’s consumer survey found that 108.5 million people shopped Black Friday deals online while 99 million went to stores. “

E-commerce industry has grown like a raging fire in the jungle and has spread all over the world conquering the majority of the purchasing options that people have these days. In past few years, physical shopping has vanished from the market and e-com has taken its place as for why anybody will bother to go out in hot summers or chilling winters or rawness monsoon for if that matters. Everybody wants to stay in their comfort zone, clicking two clicks here and there and you are done.

Lookin at what stats has to say in the last couple of years, it is not tough to say that e-com industry will continue to grow at the same pace or maybe more since now everyone now prefers online shopping over the physical shopping.

As a developer, you know that if a site has to be popular and wanted to be in the mainstream, it has to adapt new changes as fast as possible. But surveying market, knowing what people are liking most and how to promote your business is not what a developer do for a living.

So, we will break down the ecommerce trends for wordpress in the following blog post, so that anyone and everyone who are trying to make an e-com site will have the knowledge to built a better online store.

Ecommerce Trends To Watch Out For in 2017

According to research conducted by BigCommerce, 80% of people in the U.S. make purchases online at least once a month. While the majority of people shop on large marketplace websites like Amazon, roughly 30 to 40% also make purchases from web stores, independent boutiques, and category-specific e-retailers.

Nobody can deny the fact that nowadays, online shoppers are spending more time researching about best online deals, coupons, brands and much more. Now, this is your duty to help your clients making more business out of their site by optimizing their site accordingly.

Start by looking at the major marketplace websites. When they establish a groundbreaking new way to accomplish something, that’s usually a good tip-off that you’re looking at an e-commerce trend in the making.

And as we know, or many of you have guessed it until now, WordPress gave us the leisure to study what our visitors looking for/searching/need desperately and then adding all into your website. So, let’s take a glimpse of how ecommerce trends for WordPress are going to workout in 2017.

1. Mobile First

Everybody knows the value of a mobile responsive website as it allows you to increase your reach since Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all other major search engines prefer a responsive website to be served in front of their users for any niche query. So, making a mobile responsive website is a must or you can directly go for WordPress mobile responsive themes, which can save you from the hassle.

Mobile-first implies that your strategy primarily revolves around the experience of mobile users. Even if your site’s statistics tell you that more purchases are made via desktop computers or in-store, don’t be fooled. Mobile plays a big role in search and, eventually, conversions. As more online retailers become savvy to the roadblocks keeping mobile visitors from converting, we’ll see that role expand even further.

2. Conversational Commerce

“Conversational commerce” is a phrase that’s recently entered the business lexicon and it’s one that marketers and business owners need to pay closer attention to.

While mobile push notifications are not a new concept, what with everyone from the local froyo shop to your physician sending them, it’s only a matter of time before this catches on for websites. This is especially important for e-commerce companies that benefit from sending key milestone notifications to their customers. Notifications for:

An abandoned shopping cart,

A completed purchase,

A delivery that’s on its way,

A special one-day sale,

And more.

As of right now, these messages are mainly sent from websites to visitors’ emails. WordPress plugins and third-party CRMs have already done a good job of automating this. But, in 2017, conversational commerce is expected to expand into text messaging as well.

3. Content Marketing

Ecommerce companies are surely in the business of selling merchandise online but the products they are promoting have other competitors in the market.

According to crowdtap, people trust user-generated content 50% more than any other kind of media. So, if your client wants to draw traffic away from the competition, content creation may be one way to get a leg up on them.

If you develop websites for e-retailers looking to expand their business this year, this is an especially important point to be aware of. Sure, you can optimize their product pages for search, but it’s just as important to equip WordPress with tools that will enable them to create content.

4. Social Media Engagement

The use of social media to promote business whether it is e-com or any other type of business can’t be ignored or can’t be taken lightly. While marketers will tell businesses to keep their eyes on social and to build a presence within those channels, it’s the developer’s duty to bolster those efforts using WordPress.

Think of your client’s e-com site like a well-planned city blueprint. All roads are running parallel or perpendicular to each other. When any of the roads is cut or blocked, we need to create a pathway to divert traffic from that road to a running road. WordPress website should work the same as it has proper link buttons, social buttons or like or comment tabs but those should be clear to user.

5. Build Your Trust and Your List Too

Customers are now shifting their gears and take time to generate that trust factors over the company or retailer. According to one study, “55% of consumers trust customer photos more than brand-created photos”. Other studies have noted consumers’ growing reliance on online reviews and customer ratings to tell them whether or not to trust a brand or their product.

Then how can e-commerce companies can take benefit from this? It is not sufficient enough to claim that ” we have the best product in the market “. Now, customers want trust builders that they can see through their own eyes.

6. Consider Convenience

Last few couple of years have seen a lot of change as far as technology is concerned and that change has evolved in the form of smartphones, apps or cloud based technologies that made our lives much easier. While it would be more easier to blame millennials who needs everything in a convenient way, it would be more right to say that they are the first generation to have all the available tools to make it a reality.

Previously, it was sufficient for a user if a site was loading quickly and popping all the results faster but to make it more convenient, nowadays user is looking for more of the options such as faster checkout, easy payment options, quicker shipping and much more. Well that was beyond our imagination few years back but now if you have to win, this is the trick.

In all honesty, all of that stuff you do to optimize a website’s performance is non-negotiable at this point. Visitors already expect that. What they want now is for you to make their shopping experience faster/easier/cheaper for them.

7. Personalize User Experience

As we were discussing in the previous point that technology has advance so much that there’s no secret behind why we are seeing an ad on Facebook or some other social media platform for something that we just saw on Amazon or just viewed on Flipkart. You are not the only one who knows the secret ingredient behind how these stats are being recorded. Your user understands this very well, too, and it’s this understanding that’s led them to expect something in exchange for giving you access to that data.

This is why personalization is an expectation now—and it’s one that e-commerce companies, in particular, have a duty to fulfill.

Finishing off, I would like to add up that e-commerce trends coming to the forefront of our discussions this year. In the past years, the actual focus was to make your site ” responsive ” in design or using ” high-resolution image sliders “. But now it is quite clear for web developers that apart from making a site they will have another task and that is to build the site in a better way.

Thank you for reading the blog post, generally lengthy blog posts are the meaningful ones. 😛